"I shan't tell him," Mr. Crow declared, thereby astonishing Mr. Frog.
"Why not?" the tailor demanded.
"We've had a slight disagreement," said Mr. Crow with a hoarse laugh. "I'm not his newspaper any longer."
"Well, there's nothing to prevent your telling this story to other people, is there? And you certainly will be willing to mention me at the same time, won't you?" Mr. Frog inquired with an anxious pucker between his strange eyes.
"Where do you come in, pray tell?" Mr. Crow inquired coldly.
"Why, I discovered the secret!"
"Perhaps you did—and perhaps you didn't," Mr. Crow observed. Being very, very old, he was very, very wise. And he had long since learned that Mr. Frog was a somewhat slippery person. "If I spread any such news as this about Pleasant Valley I shall do it in my own way," he remarked. And thereupon the old gentleman rose quickly and disappeared in the direction of the cornfield, without so much as a "Thank you!"
Mr. Frog gazed after him mournfully.
"If that isn't just my luck!" he lamented. "I ought to have kept the secret till after the old boy had his breakfast. Then perhaps he'd have been better natured."